


Petrified Man

by fenwinter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels are Dicks, Castiel's True Form, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Episode: s04e20 The Rapture, Gen, Heaven, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8765146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenwinter/pseuds/fenwinter
Summary: Jimmy catches glimpses of the unfolding apocalypse while he's possessed. Set directly after On The Head of a Pin, continuing until the beginning of season five.





	

Jimmy is glad, in retrospect, that he didn’t step outside in his pajamas the night Castiel possessed him. He has no idea how long it’s been since that first night, but Castiel has been walking around in that old overcoat of his ever since, and he supposes angels don’t exactly need to bathe in the physical sense, but still, it’s  _ his _ body.

He would teach Castiel how to tie the tie properly, but he can’t really remember how to use his own fingers.

* * *

It’s late summer and he’s lying on a grassy hill, still in his overcoat and shoes and the rest of the outfit he had been wearing that night. He holds a handful of warm dirt in his palm, marveling at the now-foreign sensation of operating his own hands. Next he opens his eyes, and sees a sunlit afternoon above his head, watches cumulus clouds piling ever higher against the brilliant jewel-blue of the sky.

He becomes aware of a large column of light next to him on the hill, and gapes for a moment before coming to his senses. “Castiel,” he says.

The light throbs in acknowledgement.

“This is a dream,” says Jimmy wonderingly. “You’re letting me dream?”

The voice that responds comes like a thousand whispers at once, thrumming against Jimmy’s sternum.

_ YES. _

A collection of moments pass, and Jimmy becomes aware of the blood matted in his hair and an awful aching twinge in his ribs. He whimpers. “Castiel, what did you do?”

_ STAY STILL, JIMMY. _

This is hardly an answer, and Jimmy sighs, then grimaces because of the broken ribs. The column of light flickers nearly imperceptibly and then flares up more brightly than before. Jimmy feels his ribs snap back into place and he curls in on himself, groaning. Next the blood disappears from his forehead and a ribbon of light snakes around the bridge of his nose, knitting his skin back together. He hadn’t even realized there was a cut there.

_ I NUMBED WHAT I COULD _

—says Castiel as if he’s reading Jimmy’s mind, which he probably (definitely) is. A sort of shimmering ripple extends from the column of light, and with sudden clarity, Jimmy realizes that he is seeing Castiel flex his wing. His mouth falls open, he thinks, without his express consent. He can’t even see it, not properly, but it’s—he  _ knows _ it’s there, and nothing on heaven or earth or in this strange in-between dream space could have possibly prepared him for the sheer magnificence of an angel’s wing.

The wing slides slowly back out of sight, still shimmering madly, and Castiel flickers again. Jimmy, awestruck, tries to come to his senses. 

_ I WANTED TO MEET YOU HERE, TO EXPLAIN. _

“In my own dream?” Jimmy asks, and Castiel pulses in agreement. “Why here?” 

The angel looks as embarrassed as a blinding column of pure energy can look. Jimmy senses rather than sees waves of shame radiating from him. 

_ I DID NOT ANTICIPATE… _

Castiel’s grace shivers. 

_ I AM SORRY, JIMMY. YOU ARE IN MORE DANGER THAN I HAD REALIZED.  _

Jimmy nearly laughs, but the noise that comes out sounds more like a sob. “This whole thing is so beyond anything I’m used to already,” he says. “Lay it on me, what’s happened?”

_ ANGELS _

—Castiel says, and Jimmy sees his wings ruffle slightly. 

_ KILLING OTHER ANGELS. MY OWN BROTHERS... _

Never before has Jimmy been so unsure of what to say. He puts his chin in his hands, tilts his head towards the angel. Castiel’s flickering light makes a motion analogous to a human sigh. Jimmy doesn’t feel particularly disturbed by the news, only vaguely concerned, but then he’s really asleep with an angel watching over him. For now.

“I mean,” Jimmy says. “If there was anything I could do—but the scale of this problem, it’s—it’s a bit beyond what I can work around—I’m sorry, Castiel, I really am, but—”

Castiel’s grace  _ tightens _ somehow, and it looks like live wires sparking. Jimmy is no good at interpreting angelic body language, but this feels familiar somehow, in an awful way. He feels terror creep up his throat.

“Castiel,” he says. “Are you hurt?”

There’s a pause, and then—

_ I WILL HEAL. _

“You were fighting angels,” Jimmy persists. Castiel flickers again. This time it takes him a minute to regain his former brightness, but Jimmy isn’t about to argue with an angel about his physical (metaphysical?) well-being. He supposes Castiel didn’t come here to lie to him.

“Where’s my body?” Jimmy tries. “Are you still in there? Am I asleep out there, too?”

Castiel does that strange angelic sigh again, and without warning, Jimmy is staring, through eyes that he recognizes as his own, at a hospital bed with an unconscious man in it. He recognizes him—not by appearance; he hasn’t really used his own eyes since he was possessed—but by the aura around him, by the way Castiel’s grace reacts, his wings rippling invisibly behind him. This must be Dean Winchester, Jimmy thinks. 

At once the scene is gone, and Jimmy is back on the hill with the column of light by his side.

“Things aren’t looking very good out there,” he says. “That man—Dean—can you heal him?”

_ I AM TRYING. IT’S COMPLICATED. _

Jimmy is struck with a profound sense of uselessness. Castiel seems to notice.

_ YOU ARE A SOLDIER AS MUCH AS ANY OF US, JIMMY. _

A golden hand manifests from the column of light, brushing Jimmy’s hair back from his forehead in a surprisingly human gesture.

_ REST. _

Jimmy does.

* * *

He knows nothing for quite some time, and the next time he’s awake, Castiel is properly back in his body. He hears the angel speaking through his vocal chords, distorting his voice, forcing raw heavenly power through human sinew, but the sound is muffled somehow, as if he’s listening from the bottom of a lake. He can feel the angel’s grace buzzing somewhere in the back of his skull, and, strangely, in the tips of his fingers, which are burning white-hot. It’s not an unpleasant feeling; it just  _ is, _ and Jimmy slips back into semi-consciousness, observing his surroundings through glimpses of color and sound. 

They’re outside after sunset, he gathers, standing in the cold, and Dean Winchester is there. His aura is warmer now, more complete. Castiel must have healed him, or maybe time has. He doesn’t know how long he’s been away from his body. 

There’s another presence as well, clinging like smoke to Dean’s: a cold, metallic, bitter aura with a hint of spice underneath, which Jimmy takes to be Dean’s brother. Jimmy can’t see a third silhouette, so he has no idea why he can sense the brother here, now. Maybe he’s close by. 

“Dean,” Jimmy hears Castiel say, very clearly. Then, louder,  _ “Dean.”  _

Things are sliding more and more into focus before his eyes—Castiel’s, now—and he watches Dean turn around, his breath tumbling from his mouth into the cold night. He sticks his hands in his pockets and gives Castiel an impatient, but not unkind, look. Jimmy feels Castiel’s grace give an odd, lurching flutter.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

_ “Seriously,  _ Castiel?” Jimmy says. Castiel pointedly ignores him and responds to Dean, his grace still leaping around in Jimmy’s chest. This sensation is so distracting that Jimmy misses the rest of the conversation. There is a rush of feathers, and everything dissolves again.

* * *

 

The next thing he remembers, he’s lying flat on his back in an abandoned warehouse. Castiel is gone without a trace, and Dean Winchester’s face is swimming above his own.

Jimmy finally gets a proper glance at Dean’s eyes, at the urgency of his voice as he says Castiel’s name expecting the angel to respond, and he thinks he can begin to understand.

* * *

 

_ I’M SORRY, JIMMY. _

What for? His family is safe.  _ He _ is safe. Amelia will be home for dinner any minute now, and she’ll walk through the door with a laughing Claire at her heels, trading stories about school and work. A gentle snow is falling outside, and Jimmy’s hair obstinately refuses to lie flat. Jimmy flicks on the Christmas lights and then remembers that he is dead, he is in heaven, and Amelia and Claire are alive, and he won’t be seeing them for a long time, if all goes well.

“Castiel,” he says. 

The angel doesn’t respond for a moment. He’s weaker, Jimmy thinks. No column of light. No fluttering grace.

_ YOUR FAMILY IS SAFE. _

He belatedly realizes that his eyes are wet. “I know,” he says, his voice wavering. “You promised.”

_ HERE _

—says Castiel and suddenly Jimmy is glimpsing Amelia poring over something at her desk, with Claire coming up behind her with her hair done up in braids, asking her a question about something in one of her books. He breathes in nutmeg and lemon dish soap and radiator dust and lavender and it’s as if he’s really there, even for a split second, but then he’s back in heaven and Castiel trembles violently from the effort of showing him his family. 

He can’t speak for a few moments—neither of them can—but finally Jimmy finds his voice. “Thank you,” he whispers. “This—all of this, it’s more than I could have hoped—”

_ YOU WILL SEE THEM AGAIN, JIMMY. _

“And you,” Jimmy says. “What about—” He stops himself from saying  _ Dean _ . “—everything on earth?”

Castiel glows brighter for a moment and disappears without answering. It’s just Jimmy, _fool, such a fool for asking, he probably read your mind anyway,_  just Jimmy standing in his darkening kitchen with dinner in the oven, waiting for the family he knows he will not come home.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired a bit by Beat Circus' "Petrified Man", a really fantastic song.


End file.
